


How to Return Home

by Maxmerica



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Child Abuse, Gen, Nightmares, No Dialogue, Pre-Canon, Self-Hatred, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-23 07:40:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6109777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maxmerica/pseuds/Maxmerica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ford Pines most defiantly doesn't want to go home after his first year of college not because he had such an amazing year at school but because he can't face the idea of his parents loading him up with praise while they ignore the fact that he has a twin brother.<br/>(This story is just Ford's thoughts as he journeys home for the first time all year)<br/>P.S. This story is inspired by the song of the same name from the musical Our First Mistake. I put some of the lyrics that I feel fit the story the best in my notes at the beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to Return Home

**Author's Note:**

> Take a silent breath.  
> Hold in the change.  
> Tell yourself you still live here.  
> Take your bags upstairs.  
> It’s the only way you’ll get through today.  
> Count the hours.  
> Take a shower.  
> Wash yourself away.
> 
> Take a silent breath.  
> Hold in the change.  
> Tell yourself you still live here.  
> Take your bags upstairs.  
> You still share a name  
> But you’re not the same.  
> You don’t fight it.  
> You don’t hide it.  
> It’s a whole new game of how to return home.  
> How to return home.  
> How to return home.  
> How to return home.
> 
> Your bare feet sliding on the old wooden floorboards,  
> Home just as you left it but still you’re shaken. -How to Return Home from Our First Mistake

     He had avoided going home for Columbus Day, Thanksgiving, even Christmas and spring break somehow but he knew that he had no choice, he had to go home. His freshman year of college was over. Even back before he left for school he had tried his best to avoid the house since THAT NIGHT. He couldn't stand the way his parents, especially his father, kept heaping praise on him while not knowing or even caring to know what was happening with Stan and it killed him. The worst part was he knew that it was all his fault. If he had just stood up to their father that night maybe just maybe his brother wouldn't have been kicked out or at least he would know if his brother was alive or dead or even just if he was sick or injured, at least that's what the voice in his head, that sounded eerily like his father kept telling him. Sleeping wasn't much better. He would often have horrifying nightmares of finding Stan dead or even worse Stan dying in his arms, covered in his own blood and in reminding him that all this was his fault. He pored himself into his schoolwork telling everyone, his parents, his best friend and roommate, Fiddleford, and even himself sometimes that he had to work twice as hard at Backupsomemore to accomplish the same things that he would have at West Coast Tech. But deep down he knew that he was deluding himself, he really tried to make sure he was never idle for that's when his mind would tourtre him. During one of his worst nights, Fiddleford found out everything from Stan, to their father, to their father kicking Stan out. Afterwords, Ford knew that if Fiddleford ever meet his father he would deck him in the face as soon as he met the man. It honestly warmed his heart to know that at least one other person cared about Stan. However he found it annoying and tedious whenever Fiddleford would try to convince him that it wasn't his fault at all that Stan got kicked out. How couldn't it be all his fault? It's glaring obvious that Stan accidentally broke his project and he didn't believe him, his own twin brother, and what's worse when their father physically tossed Stan out onto the street he turned his back on him. How couldn't be his fault if Stan was sick or injured or starving or dead? If something happened to Stan while he was out there in the world Ford knew that it would be his fault. Some older brother he turned out to be! Ford wished that he and Stan could switch places. It's not like he didn't deserve whatever terrible fate had befallen Stan. He was shaken out of his depressing thoughts by the sudden jolt of the train as it pulled into the station. He looked out the window and saw his parents waiting for him, proud similes upon their faces. He looked around in vain but it was just as he expected, no Stan. This is going to be a long summer, he thought to himself as he gathered his suitcase and walked off the train towards his parents.


End file.
